


Advent I

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I appear to need Christmas this year. So, here, on the eve of Halloween, I am posting my first Christmas Advent story. There may be more, depending.</p><p>It is, as all Christmas stories should be, sappy and redemptive and sentimental as hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent I

Mycroft hated Christmas. Well—the entire holiday season, to be honest, but Christmas in particular. In his experience Christmas was a lying jade, offering far more than it ever delivered, and far too quick with a backhanded slap that left your ears ringing.

Just the times Sherlock alone had turned it from happiness to hell would have accounted for it. The damnable boy had managed to ruin Christmas even before he was born, Mummy going into early labor with a ruptured membrane weeks and weeks before Sherlock was due. She’d been rushed to hospital and kept on antibiotics and drugs to stop labor on Christmas Eve, Father rushing along in her wake tight-lipped and terrified, leaving Mycroft to be put to bed by a nearby neighbor called in for the emergency. He’d woken Christmas morning to his least favorite aunt and the news that Mummy and Father would be staying at hospital as long as the pregnancy could be safely prolonged. Father didn’t return until the seventh of January—the day after Sherlock was born. Mummy didn’t return with Sherlock for weeks after that, staying with her youngest son as he struggled past his early weeks in neonatal care.

On the whole, Mycroft had concluded, it had to be accepted as honesty in advertising. Sherlock had broken bones, set the house on fire, run away from home, returned as a prodigal soaring higher than the heavens on heroin…all on Christmas. That left out all the Christmas dinners with family over to visit that were turned into war zones by Sherlock’s less welcome deductions, or worse, by his tantrums and sulks. Over the years Mycroft had taken to pointing out, wearily, that Sherlock had at least started as he meant to go on, when Mummy or Father or some other family member bemoaned Sherlock’s latest attack on the sacred joy of the Christmas season.

The truth was, though, it wasn’t just Sherlock. Christmas forever promised the world and the stars—and Mycroft knew in his heart that the core problem was that every time he let himself listen to those silver-bell promises, he believed. With all his heart, he believed: in Midnight Mass and “For Unto Us a Child is Given,” and “Away in a Manger,” and Father Christmas and angels and stars on the tops of trees. He believed in family—big, warm, laughing families gathered over the Christmas roast, pulling crackers and telling sophomoric jokes and gorging on plum pudding and brandied hard sauce. He believed in redemption, and hope, and new covenants. He believed in wise men following stars. He believed in shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night, when, lo!, an angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. But the angel of the Lord said, “Fear not!” and gave them tidings of great joy, that would be to all people.

Time and time again Mycroft discovered the angel of the Lord was a delusional terrorist with a semtex vest, and the tidings of great joy were that if the British Government didn’t hand over captives the terrorist would explode St. Paul's Cathedral and everyone in it who’d shown up for the Christmas service. Which, he supposed, made it a blessing of sorts that C of E attendance had dropped badly over the years, even on Christmas—but, still. After all, even the fallen-away tended to show up for the Midnight Mass and the carols…

“Really, it would put anyone off Christmas,” he told Lestrade.

Lestrade, stamping his feet and huffing fog into the damp air of a rainy London December, shot him a look askance. “All I said is I like the carols playing on the lift,” he said.

“ _And_ the banners on the street-lights,” Mycroft growled. “And the tinsel and stars.”

Lestrade sighed. “Yeah, okay, fine. Whatever.” He glanced over again, and said, “Really, though—you don’t feel anything? Not even a bit of holiday spirit?”

“Bah,” Mycroft said, voice flat and stubborn. “Humbug, too.” He pouted and hunkered deeper into the Crombie coat.

He knew, though. He adored Christmas. It wouldn’t hurt so much if he didn’t.

“Me, I’m an orphan,” Lestrade said. Not that it was really news—many agents were. For that matter, by the age of fifty-something quite a lot of people were. Still… “No real family,” he went on. “Moved around. Sometimes with aunts and cousins and so on. Sometimes in foster care. But Christmas—it took the edge off, somehow. Even when they didn’t give a damn about me, come Christmas we were all family, you know? Stockings and boxes under the tree and Christmas dinner and all. No one gets left out at Christmas.”

Mycroft felt his eyes sting, and looked away, not willing to have Lestrade witness the sudden sentiment taking him unprepared. “No. I suppose even a bad family makes an effort at Christmas,” he said.

The store behind them was playing “Away in a Manger,” piping the music out onto the street. It was unfair.

Lestrade grunted. “It’s things like Christmas that remind them to try, yeah?”

“I suppose.” He sighed. “Usually I just stay home on Christmas, if Mummy hasn’t taken it into her head to wax familial for some reason. Last time it was Sherlock coming out of hospital—and you know how that turned out.”

Lestrade gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Aye, well, Sherlock…”

“He drugged the punch, Lestrade!” Mycroft whined, feeling a need to point out the sheer atrocity of it. “And then went out and killed a man!”

Lestrade turned, then, and smiled at him. “Poor you,” he said, fondly. “Shoulda come over to my place after. I had Irish coffee and plum pudding, and after I went out to see the Christmas panto at the Dominion. You could have come with. It would have taken the edge off. I even had a bowl of crackers. Just think, you could have worn a foil crown and read off a silly joke to me.”

It suddenly occurred to Mycroft, with that crack of revelation that occurred when his logic managed to intercept a social or emotional element of existence, that Lestrade had drunk his Irish coffee and eaten his plum pudding and pulled his crackers and gone to the panto alone. For reasons he dared not admit, the thought broke his heart.

He stood straighter, and put his nose in the air. “Yes, well. I do quite like plum pudding…”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said, smiling.

“If we did it at mine, though. Well. We could pick: open up the country house, or celebrate in my rooms on Pall Mall.”

“Pall Mall’s closer to the theaters,” Lestrade pointed out.

“So it is. And, really, cozier if it’s just the two of us.”

“Aye,” Lestrade said, happily. “Easier to get to. Maybe we could go to Midnight Mass, too.”

“Only if the terrorists aren’t too busy that night,” Mycroft pointed out, but added, with a smile, “Midnight they do all the carols, and I do love a good round of ‘Joy to the World.'”

“You would, you silly old tosser,” Lestrade said, and the two proceeded to plan the holiday as they waited for Anthea to announce the latest news of the pending espionage apocalypse over their headsets, in her most chipper intonations.


End file.
